Back in the summer of 2011 Celtic fans feared discovering that a £10m bid was about to come in for Emilio Izaguirre.
For £600,000 in August 2010 Neil Lennon managed to solve a long term problem position with a player fresh from the World Cup in South Africa.
Almost instantly you can tell that ‘Izzy’ was a player. Small, wiry and mobile he was at peak fitness and very much the modern full-back as he bombed forward down the left flank to link up with attacks.
In August 2011 the unthinkable happened- Izzy got injured. It was a horrible blow as he was cut down in his prime at Pittodrie without an opponent near him, his ankle giving way. The fracture overwhelmed a Celtic victory and suddenly the search was on to find a replacement left-back.
The search went all the way to Kiev and the first ever Moroccan to play for Celtic- Badr El Kaddouri.
To begin with El Kaddouri played very much in the same fashion as Izaguirre. His debut against Motherwell seemed to suggest that a like for like replacement had been found.
Even in a desperate defeat at Ibrox there was a crumb of comfort with the loan bhoy finding the net in his second Celtic appearance.
El Kaddouri kept his place in the side for a month and appeared as a substitute in the dramatic turnaround at Rugby Park on October 15. He replaced Cha Du-Ri with Celtic trailing 3-0 and within 12 minutes Celtic were on level terms with Lennon surviving to fight another day- and take the SPL title.
There was just one more Celtic appearance for the Moroccan internationalist, in January he returned to Dinamo Kiev where he stayed for another season and a half before his career ended.
Like Jo Doumbe and his Scottish Cup winning goal against Dunfermline in 2007 El Kaddouri will be remembered for one goal in the briefest of Celtic careers.
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CLICK HERE for Dembele’s profound tweet
CLICK HERE for Why did this Celtic player not get the November Player of the Month award?.
